Pac-Man debuted as an arcade game from Namco in Japan in 1980, designed by Toru Iwatani, and quickly became one of the most recognizable video games in the world. Its simple maze-chase gameplay came with a set of distinctive electronic sounds, including the rapid waka-waka munching effect and short jingles that defined early arcade audio. As retro gaming culture grew through YouTube, Twitch and TikTok, those few seconds of chiptune became shorthand for nostalgia, used in memes, edits and streams to signal anything arcade-related or playfully old-school.